How to deal with ‘administrivia’ | Managers at Work

“I just started a new mid-level manager job and I’m horrified at the amount of unnecessary bureaucracy and paperwork that I have to do.  I have a young team and when they screw up, it’s almost always something to do with some form or process that they didn’t complete. When I talk to them about it, they often say the form in question is pointless and they’re right. But we have to do these things anyway. How can we escape all this unnecessary administrative bureaucracy?”

The end of paperwork – what would that be like?

Often labeled these days as “administrivia,” this mountain of paperwork can be the bane of a  manager’s life. You know what we’re talking about:sp the endless forms, approvals, reports, permissions and documentation that can add up to a significant part of every middle manager’s day. It’s boring, outrageously time-consuming, and can seriously drain a manager’s energy, making it difficult to get to critical things.

It can lead to serious stress, decreases in productivity, not to mention lost opportunities for business growth and innovation as well as employee development and job satisfaction.

“As an IT manager with an engineering background, I find ‘administrivia’ especially challenging because it hinders creativity and saps all the fun out of my work,” says Sarafa Ibrahim, an IT manager at a company in Michigan. Monotonous tasks should be automated to allow time and room for tasks that improve our critical thinking and problem-solving skills.”

A few years ago, he was assigned to build spreadsheets to document security vulnerabilities identified from earlier tests. That meant inputting hundreds of records into different columns. “The task was tedious and laborious — paging through multiple sheets with mouse drags and clicks. It’s incredibly challenging to work on repetitive tasks you believe can be automated or know how to automate,” he says.

The result of that challenge, though, was the development of a strategic improvement. He found a way to add automation as a requirement in security vendor selection, requiring security findings to be tracked to a management dashboard that is exportable to an Excel or PDF format for additional data processing. “It has made a huge difference,” Ibrahim says.

Indeed, it takes some analytical and strategic thinking to analyze the bureaucratic load and begin to identify and implement some creative solutions.

Jeff Mains, chief executive officer of Champion Leadership Group, LLC in Dallas, Texas suggests using the “Eisenhower Matrix” to help you prioritize administrative tasks based on “important, urgent, neither or both.” “By focusing on the ‘important’ and ‘urgent’ tasks, managers can delegate or eliminate non-essential administrative work,” he says.

Before you do that, however, check your mindset, says Tara Furiani, a human resources consultant, keynote speaker and host of the “Not the HR Lady” on YouTube.

“The first step is to stop viewing these tasks as trivialities that lie beneath you. In the grand scheme of things, they are the cogs and wheels that keep the organizational machine running smoothly. To handle it all, she advises implementing what she calls “efficient delegation.”

That doesn’t mean dumping this paperwork on someone, it means delegating it. “It involves careful selection, explicit instruction, and oversight. You’re not just offloading tasks; you’re building competence within your team. “

Besides effective delegation, be sure to investigate software. Today’s market offers an array of solutions to help with routine tasks. “Invest in this technology, not as a replacement for human effort, but as a complement to it. It’s not about job elimination; it’s about job elevation.”

Then think about the importance of company culture which is often the most ‘underestimated tool’ in your toolbox. “Instill a shared sense of administrative responsibility across your team. Believe me, when everyone pulls their weight, the burden of routine lightens.”

And another tip: don’t be afraid to question the necessity of existing administrative paperwork and processes. “As someone right in the middle of the hierarchy, you have a unique vantage point to assess the efficiency and relevance of these tasks,” Furiani says. “If something seems archaic or redundant, raise it. As they say, ‘That’s how we’ve always done it’ is the most dangerous phrase in business.”

If you’re bogged down in ‘administrivia,’ take the opportunity to try to do something about it. “Who better than you to turn this managerial quagmire into a well-oiled operation?”

Indeed, addressing the burden of ‘administrivia,’ is critical for middle managers who are becoming more and more important as the future of work evolves. In a report by McKinsey & Co. in August, the co-authors of the new book, “Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work,” pointed to “administrivia” as a culprit keeping managers more focused on paperwork than on “people work.”

“I think they’re faced with an overwhelming demand on their time,” said co-author Bill Schaninger in an interview. “On one hand, they have what their job has been created to be: largely they’re supposed to focus on what’s been called ‘strategic planning.’ But in reality, it really is tactical and/or operational planning: someone else has done the strategy. Now they’re making plans to do plans, in many cases doing reports, doing PowerPoint decks, ‘administrivia.’”

Schaninger defined that as “too much process, too much paperwork, too many meetings, too much performance by attendance.” “The common denominator is it just takes time and attention. They’re feeding the beast way more than they’re developing their employees.”

“What surprised me most when we dug into the research for the book was just how bad it’s gotten.”

Another co-author, Bryan Hancock, recalled working with a healthcare organization in which middle managers had to filter through 300-plus requests from headquarters in any given week. “It was overwhelming and they didn’t see it as driving near-term performance.”

The organization tried reorienting the managers’ work to enable more work with their people and delivering client services. “They were actually able to eliminate a lot of the administrivia tasks.”

Beyond eliminating things, there is power in the way  you think about and approach “administrivia,” says Irina Mihaela, an executive coach and business consultant in Canada. “The best way to cope with all that is required of a manager, in my experience, is to maintain a positive and powerful attitude and to know that there are choices.”

“The moment we feel a victim of the system or the business, we lose energy and the ability to find solutions. Complaining is weakening and feeling powerless is paralyzing.”

Think about delegating to the people who like doing these tasks and feel good using their skills to do them. “When we strategize and see how we can delegate, how we can minimize, and how we can quickly do the tasks that we have to do, we maintain our power and things get done faster and with more enjoyment.”

Managers at Work is a monthly column exploring the issues and challenges facing managers. Contact Kathleen Driscoll with questions or comments by email at [email protected]